Wherein the reader is directed to click a link and be edified.

A reader forwarded me something which was forwarded to him which was reposted by NLM which was from the St. Louis Dispatch, about a church renovation Memphis… Tennessee, not Egypt.

Apart from obvious merits of my sender, or the esteemed talents of his sender, or the praiseworthy characteristics of NLM or the professional achievements of the paper, the curiosity this startling news should arouse in you will be rewarded, should you determine that the aforementioned article is not to be bypassed in favour of any other pressing though ephemeral distraction, with the reading of a succinct paragraph which includes an unlikely triplet of words that could only have been penned by one such as that bicentenarian wordsmith Charles Dickens, perhaps as the introductory title of a chapter:

The pastor, Msgr. John McArthur was very instrumental in the redesign. Victor Buchholz, of the firm of Looney Ricks Kiss in Memphis, was the principal architect.

Believe me when I say that I remain, dear readers, your most humble, devoted, etc.

Curious to further investigate and, expectantly, to admire the work of this Dickensian-named firm, I availed myself of a momentary glance upon their website. Disappointment arose within as, with a certain dismay, I learnt they have not seen fit to display their recent work on this fine house of worship!

I have to admit that I have a difficult time concentrating during mass at times because I have an architecture degree, and this is the kind of thing I daydream about when I’m in a particularly ugly church. Wonderful to see that someone has actually done it. And maybe this would be a good niche for me someday when I’m done raising kiddos.

Wonderfully done. As asophist said, “infinitely more Catholic.” An altar rail would have been perfect. Perhaps in “phase II?” Tip of the hat to Msgr. McArthur and the folks at St. Louis Catholic Church.

They seem to go by LRK. I would!
When I worked in Harrisburg, PA, for a summer I used to pass a law firm called Hayes, Large, Suckling, Fruth & Wedge. Is that a great name or what? That was about 28 years ago but I just Googled them — they’re still around!

I am a member of Blessed Sacrament parish here in Memphis, which is a 100 year old parish in Midtown Memphis that celebrates the TLM every Sunday at 8:30. At the risk of horning in on St. Louis’ acclaim…I would encourage anyone in Memphis or the surrounding area, to come check out Blessed Sacrament if they are interested in a very holy TLM experience, as it becomes Mantilla Nation on Sunday mornings (the NO Mass is well done as well).

But concerning St. Louis, I do go to St. Louis parish at least weekly for Adoration, as they have a 24 hour Perpetual Adoration Chapel (which unfortunately, was closed New Year’s Eve), and had the opportunity to see the transformation unfold over the past 6 months. Quite a change and very impressive! Another good thing about St. Louis is, that they keep the Sanctuary open almost 24/7 just as they do the Adoration Chapel, and it’s nice to be able to have access to the Sanctuary to do Stations of the Cross whenever you want. They also renovated each of the 14 Stations and they are also well done. If only they could jettison the awful pop music they play at their 6 pm Sunday Mass…simply awful…and instruct some of their parishioneers on proper Mass attire (once saw a guy wear a golf hat during Mass there) to go along with their renovations….an altar rail and TLM would also be nice, but gotta start somewhere….brick by brick!

I saw the pictures over at NLM-wow, what a difference!
‘Looney Ricks and Kiss’-oh, my goodness, what a funny name!
AnAmericanMother-have you heard of the radio talk show, ‘Car Talk’? It’s on [sorry to say] NPR. These guys are a riot, though; when they do their closing credits, they use hilarious names. One is ‘Dewey, Cheetum & How’.
But I’ll have to look at the link you provided-I need a laugh this gloomy rainy morning!

In my neck of the woods we have the Amigone Funeral Home. And yes, it is pronounced that way.

I’m always fascinated by the magnificent renovations of these unfortunate structures; it’s really just amazing what they can do sometimes. The California missions provide a good lesson for what to do with church interiors that are rather less than remarkable: if you glorify the sanctuary adequately enough the rest of the church can look like a barn, yet the whole building will seem magnificent.

Though I am sadly late in coming to this excellent post, I would call your attention to the fact that, upon first reading your words, Fr. Z., I thought–though I am sure this was a mistaken impulse on my part–that you might be satirizing the style of a certain blogger, who shall of course remain unnamed, who is, in turn, perhaps at times known for composing rather long (though we would not say uninformed) sentences on matters of interest to this reading community, and whose style does indeed at times cause me, as an editor, to work rather hard in stifling a primordial scream.

I made a visit to St. Louis Church on Christmas evening just to see the renovation, and it is definitely amazing. Incidentally, this was the parish where now-Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle was pastor when he was named Bishop of Little Rock. Kudos to Msgr. John B. McArthur for this stunning improvement!

Winfield: well done sir. I commend that paragraph, and all of its facetiousness(which may or may not be a word). I also find it hard, given my state in life and proximity to a computer(not an excuse, but merely an explanation), to not be painfully aware of the blog of which you speak.

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“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

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Additional Food For Thought

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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